AGARTALA: The Tripura High Court, granting bail on April 27 to all five accused in the Prasenjit Sarkar death case, described the December 13 assault at Dharmanagar’s Blue Dart Courier office as a “solitary incident and not a continuous act of harassment,” a legal distinction critical to the charge of pushing someone to take their own life. The court also noted there was “nothing on record” regarding the backgrounds of the accused and found their chance of fleeing to be less.
A review of court documents, official police statements, and media reports published at that time raises questions about what the investigating officer placed before the court and what was left out.
The Evening Prasenjit Never Came Back From
Prasenjit Sarkar (24), a delivery executive at the Blue Dart Courier franchise in Dharmanagar’s Rajbari area and reportedly the sole earning member of his family, was found hanging from a tree near his home in Kameswar area on the morning of December 14, 2025. According to the police case report filed in court, the events leading to his death began on the evening of December 13, when a dispute arose over a cancelled online order involving the accused Susmita Bhattacharjee.
She subsequently arrived at the courier office with 4 others, including her siblings Sangita Bhattacharjee and Sourab Bhattacharjee, along with Meghadeep Bhattacharjee and Piu Dhar. According to witness statements and the police case report, Sourab allegedly grabbed Prasenjit’s jacket collar and tore it. Meanwhile, Sangita allegedly slapped him 3 times in front of bystanders.
The incident was recorded on a mobile phone. A video that subsequently spread widely showed Prasenjit performing sit-ups while holding his ears. The High Court order describes this as him having “accepted his fault and begged pardon,” though the victim’s family and witnesses have described it as a forced act of public humiliation. The group departed, allegedly warning Prasenjit that if the footage surfaced on Facebook, he would not be able to show his face anywhere.
Prasenjit returned home that evening, visibly distressed, weeping, and told family members he did not want to live anymore. He stepped out again, reportedly to retrieve his jacket, and did not return. His body was found the next morning. The post-mortem examination recorded the cause of death as death by hanging, while alive, with no other external injuries.
Arrested in Assam, Recorded as Local
His father, Nepal Sarkar, filed a written complaint at Dharmanagar Police Station on December 14. Multiple media reports published that day and the following day, citing police officials and family members, confirmed that the complaint named all 5 accused by name: Susmita Bhattacharjee, Sangita Bhattacharjee, Sourab Bhattacharjee, Meghadeep Bhattacharjee, and Piu Dhar. Tripura Times also reported the news.
However, the High Court order records that the police complaint was lodged “against said accused Miss Susmita Bhattacharjee, Miss Sangita Bhattacharjee and three others (not named in the FIR).” The discrepancy between this characterisation and the contemporaneous media record is one of several factual questions the case file raises, Ukhrul Times also reported.
Police registered the case under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the new criminal law, including the provision corresponding to murder and, subsequently, the provision dealing with pushing someone to take their own life. The incident triggered widespread protests across Tripura, with residents, labour organisations, student groups, and political parties demanding immediate arrests and strict punishment, as reported by The Times of India.
Meanwhile, Susmita, Sangita, and Sourab were arrested on December 18, 2025. North Tripura Superintendent of Police Abhinash Rai confirmed that the 3 were arrested from the Karimganj (Sribhumi) district in Assam with the assistance of Assam Police, reported by ANI.
They were subsequently brought to Churaibari Police Station and produced before the North Tripura District Sessions Court. Meghadeep Bhattacharjee (24) and Piu Dhar (22) remained in hiding until December 27, when they were arrested from the Churaibari checkpoint area in North Tripura by a special team led by the Officer-In-Charge of Dharmanagar Police Station, reported by Tripura Chronicle.
However, the High Court bail order records that “Accused Susmita, Sourab and Sangita were arrested by police on 18.12.2025 at Churaibari area, which is within the same district where their house is situated” and used this finding to conclude that “the chance of their abscondence is lesser.” A comparison of this finding with the Superintendent of Police’s own confirmed statement to the media raises a question about the arrest location that the prosecution appears not to have clarified before the High Court, as reported by Northeast Live.
One Person, Two Roles, One Story Before the Court
Their requests for bail were rejected by lower courts on multiple occasions. The case was sent to the Sessions Court at Dharmanagar, which allowed the investigating officer’s request to keep the accused in jail during trial. The accused subsequently moved the High Court seeking bail.
Before the High Court, the defence argued that 4 of the 5 accused, including Meghadeep, Sangita, and Piu, were students pursuing postgraduate degrees at Tripura University, and Susmita was pursuing a postgraduate degree through IGNOU at Dharmanagar. The court accepted this submission.
At the time of the arrests in December 2025, multiple national, regional, and local media outlets confirmed that Sangita was a school teacher by profession. The Times of India also reported. Separately, the termination letter available in the public domain indicated that her school removed her from her post on December 15, just one day after the incident went viral. The school cited that her “behaviour and attitude are not proper for the welfare of the students.” The termination letter is available on Aguli.
It is worth noting that Sangita was simultaneously holding two roles at the time of the incident, working as a teacher at Tripureshwari Shishu Tirtha, identified as Dharmanagar’s first private school, and pursuing a post-graduate degree at Tripura University. Being a student and being employed as a teacher are not mutually exclusive, and the termination letter from the school is itself evidence that she was actively working in a professional capacity when the incident occurred.
Before the High Court, only the student’s role was presented. The teaching role, and the school’s own documented action of removing her on grounds directly linked to the incident, reportedly does not appear to have been placed before the court. Whether this employment history was placed before the High Court is not reflected in the bail order.
Additionally, social media posts circulated at that time show Sangita being congratulated on her appointment as Joint Secretary and subsequently Cultural Secretary of the ABVP’s Dharmanagar unit in 2018 and 2019, respectively, and participating in the organisation’s public programmes and events.
Notably, an Instagram reel posted by Payel Debnath, identified as an SFI leader, merged 6 photographs showing individuals congratulating Sangita on her appointment to the ABVP’s Dharmanagar unit and attending ABVP rallies, lending further weight to her documented organizational background.
The High Court noted that “nothing is there in record that they are influential persons.” Whether this documented public profile was part of the record placed before the court is a question the order does not answer.
What the Whole State Watched — And What the Charge Sheet Could Not Prove
A further question arises from the police case report’s treatment of the video’s circulation. The footage was widely understood to have gone viral on social media, and public anger over its spread drove much of the protest movement across Tripura. A Facebook creator, Rashik Mamu, shared a video that opened with footage showing Sangita slapping Prasenjit and Prasenjit apologising, confirming the footage had reached open social media platforms beyond the WhatsApp group that the police case report referred to.
The High Court noted, however, that the police case report “has not mentioned specifically anything that the video footage was uploaded in the Facebook account or in any other open social media platform.” According to the court record, the footage was shared within a WhatsApp group among the accused and close relatives, and was deleted from it after Prasenjit’s death.
How the Case Against Five Accused Came Apart on Paper
The police case report itself carried a structural problem. The original police complaint was registered under the provision corresponding to murder under the new criminal law. Police, however, dropped the murder provision from the case report they filed in court. The top magistrate of the district accepted the murder charge for formal proceedings despite its absence from the police case report. The defence flagged this inconsistency before the High Court.
Moreover, the Additional Public Prosecutor had submitted before the Chief Judicial Magistrate that a witness had been threatened under Meghadeep’s instruction and that a police complaint had been filed in this regard. The investigating officer, however, did not mention this in the written request to keep the accused in jail during trial. The High Court found the ground not elaborated by the investigating officer and gave it no weight, a lapse that materially affected the bail hearing.
Justice S. Datta Purkayastha of the Tripura High Court, after considering submissions from both sides, held that the incident was a “solitary incident” with no sufficient material on the face of it for direct instigation or pushing the deceased to take his own life. Invoking the settled legal position that bail is the rule and jail the exception, and citing the constitutional right to personal liberty, the court ordered all 5 accused released on a security amount of Rs 1 lakh each with one guarantor of like amount, subject to conditions including no contact with witnesses, regular appearance before the trial court, and no travel outside Tripura without prior permission of the Sessions Judge.
The court clarified that its observations were made “for the limited purpose of deciding the merit of the bail application” and “will have no bearing in trial.” The case record was received back by the Sessions Court in Dharmanagar on April 28. The trial continues.
The deceased’s father, Nepal Sarkar, was notified by the High Court but did not appear to contest the bail request.
[This report is based entirely on court records, official police statements confirmed to national media, and documents available in the public domain. All questions raised are drawn from a factual comparison of the public record with the court record. The trial is pending before the Sessions Court, and no conclusion has been drawn on the guilt or innocence of the accused.]